Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Koln

Emily, Stephanie and I went on a day trip to Koln, Germany. Our train was suppose to leave around 9:00am but was delayed a half hour. We arrive in Koln around 11 and we went to the very large Cathedral there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Cathedral). We walked around the inside before heading up the tower. We climbed over 500 stairs up this spiral staircase to the top of one of the towers in the Cathedral. There was a really nice view of the city and the Rhine River from the top and you could see some of the large bells in the Cathedral. Going down was a lot easier though we actually got pretty dizzy and had to stop a few times to try and stop things from spinning! After that we just walked around for a while. They have many many shops so of course we did a little shopping. I only got a new belly ring from Six which is an accessory store like Clair's only a little nicer. I also got a headband from H&M. We took a coffee break at Dunk N Donuts; I have actually never been here in the States. I just got a French vanilla iced coffee and a doughnut with lemon frosting. Then we head to the river and walked along it. We went up on the big bridge that crosses it that has train tracks and a sidewalk. There is a wire fence on the bridge that over many many years, people have come and put locks on it. Most of the locks have engravings on them with the couple's wedding date. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_padlocks) Couples come and put their locks on the fence and then throw their keys into the river. After that we went back to the train station where Stephanie had a little more shopping to do. Our train was suppose to leave around 17:45 but when we looked at the board we saw that it was canceled! We went to the information counter and they told us that the next one left at 19:17 so we had an hour and a half to kill. We just walked around the train station and got some food at Pizza Hut! I thought the pizza was Hawain, I didn't really look at the sign I just looked at the pizza. When I tried it, it was defiantly not Hawaiin! What I thought was pineapple was actually white asparagus and had some kind of weird sauce. I was hungry so I ate it but it was interesting. We were so happy when our train finally came and we finally made it back to Arnhem around 9:30. We later found out why our train was canceled; there was a labor strike in Amsterdam which was the destination of our train. All semester long it seems that there have been train strikes in Germany which makes the train some what unreliable to use and now there are some in Holland. So another place that I can check off of my list!